Antony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange

“You will see, boy, that the Party will not be ungrateful. Oh, no. At the end of it all there will be some very acceptable little surprise for you. Just you wait and see.”

“There’s only one veshch I require,” I creeched out, “and that’s to be normal and healthy as I was in the starry days, having my malenky bit of fun with real droogs and not those who just call themselves that and are really more like traitors. Can you do that, eh? Can any veck restore me to what I was? That’s what I want and that’s what I want to know.”

Kashl kashl kashl, coughed this Z. Dolin. “A martyr to the cause of Liberty.” he said. “You have your part to play and don’t forget it. Meanwhile, we shall look after you.” And he began to stroke my left rooker as if I was like an idiot, grinning in a bezoomny way. I creeched:

“Stop treating me like a thing that’s like got to be just used. I’m not an idiot you can impose on, you stupid bratchnies. Ordinary prestoopnicks are stupid, but I’m not ordinary and nor am I dim. Do you slooshy?”

“Dim,” said F. Alexander, like musing. “Dim. That was a name somewhere. Dim.”

“Eh?” I said. “What’s Dim got to do with it? What do you know about Dim?” And then I said: “Oh, Bog help us.” I didn’t like the look in F. Alexander’s glazzies. I made for the door, wanting to go upstairs and get my platties and then itty off.

“I could almost believe,” said F. Alexander, showing his stained zoobies, his glazzies mad. “But such things are impossible. For, by Christ, if he were I’d tear him. I’d split him, by God, yes yes, so I would.”

“There,” said D. B. da Silva, stroking his chest like he was a doggie to calm him down. “It’s all in the past. It was other people altogether. We must help this poor victim. That’s what we must do now, remembering the Future and our Cause.”

“I’ll just get my platties,” I said, at the stair-foot, “that is to say clothes, and then I’ll be ittying off all on my oddy knocky. I mean, my gratitude for all, but I have my own jeezny to live.” Because, brothers, I wanted to get out of here real skorry. But Z. Dolin said:

“Ah, no. We have you, friend, and we keep you. You come with us. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.” And he came up to me like to grab hold of my rooker again. Then, brothers, I thought of fight, but thinking of fight made me like want to collapse and sick, so I just stood. And then I saw this like madness in F. Alexander’s glazzies and said:

“Whatever you say. I am in your rookers. But let’s get it started and all over, brothers.” Because what I wanted now was to get out of this mesto called HOME. I was beginning not to like the look of the glazzies of F. Alexander one malenky bit.

“Good,” said this Rubinstein. “Get dressed and let’s get started.”

“Dim dim dim,” F. Alexander kept saying in a like low mutter. “What or who was this Dim?” I ittied upstairs real skorry and dressed in near two seconds flat. Then I was out with these three and into an auto, Rubinstein one side of me and Z. Dolin coughing kashl kashl kashl the other side. D. B. da Silva doing the driving, into the town and to a flatblock not really all that distant from what had used to be my own flatblock or home. “Come, boy, out,” said Z. Dolin, coughing to make the cancer-end in his rot glow red like some malenky furnace. “This is where you shall be installed.” So we ittied in, and there was like another of these Dignity of Labour veshches on the wall of the vestibule, and we upped in the lift, brothers, and then went into a flat like all the flats of all the flatblocks of the town. Very very malenky, with two bedrooms and one live-eat-work-room, the table of this all covered with books and papers and ink and bottles and all that cal. “Here is your new home,” said D. B. da Silva. “Settle here, boy. Food is in the food-cupboard. Pyjamas are in a drawer. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit.”

“Eh?” I said, not quite ponying that.

“All right,” said Rubinstein, with his starry goloss. “We are now leaving you. Work has to be done. We’ll be with you later. Occupy yourself as best you can.”

“One thing,” coughed Z. Dolin kashl kashl kashl. “You saw what stirred in the tortured memory of our friend F. Alexander. Was it, by chance—? That is to say, did you—? I think you know what I mean. We won’t let it go any further.”

“I’ve paid,” I said. “Bog knows I’ve paid for what I did. I’ve paid not only for like myself but for those bratchnies too that called themselves my droogs.” I felt violent so then I felt a bit sick. “I’ll lay down a bit,” I said. “I’ve been through terrible terrible times.”

“You have,” said D. B. da Silva, showing all his thirty zoobies. “You do that.”

So they left me, brothers. They ittied off about their business, which I took to be about politics and all that cal, and I was on the bed, all on my oddy knocky with everything very very quiet. I just laid there with my sabogs kicked off my nogas and my tie loose, like all bewildered and not knowing what sort of a jeezny I was going to live now. And all sorts of like pictures kept like passing through my gulliver, of the different chellovecks I’d met at school and in the Staja, and the different veshches that had happened to me, and how there was not one veck you could trust in the whole bolshy world. And then I like dozed off, brothers.

When I woke up I could hear slooshy music coming out of the wall, real gromky, and it was that that had dragged me out of my bit of like sleep. It was a symphony that I knew real horrorshow but had not slooshied for many a year, namely the Symphony Number Three of the Danish veck Otto Skadelig, a very gromky and violent piece, especially in the first movement, which was what was playing now. I slooshied for two seconds in like interest and joy, but then it all came over me, the start of the pain and the sickness, and I began to groan deep down in my keeshkas. And then there I was, me who had loved music so much, crawling off the bed and going oh oh oh to myself and then bang bang banging on the wall creching: “Stop, stop it, turn it off!” But it went on and it seemed to be like louder. So I crashed at the wall till my knuckles were all red red krovvy and torn skin, creeching and creeching, but the music did not stop. Then I thought I had to get away from it, so I lurched out of the malenky bedroom and ittied skorry to the front door of the flat, but this had been locked from the outside and I could not get out. And all the time the music got more and more gromky, like it was all a deliberate torture, O my brothers. So I stuck my little fingers real deep in my ookos, but the trombones and kettledrums blasted through gromky enough. So I creeched again for them to stop and went hammer hammer hammer on the wall, but it made not one malenky bit of difference. “Oh, what am I to do?” I boohooed to myself. “Oh, Bog in Heaven help me.” I was like wandering all over the flat in pain and sickness, trying to shut out the music and like groaning deep out of my guts, and then on top of the pile of books and papers and all that cal that was on the tablein the living room I viddied what I had to do and what I had wanted to do until those old men in the Public Biblio and then Dim and Billyboy disguised as rozzes stopped me, and that was to do myself in, to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked and cruel world. What I viddied was the slovo DEATH on the cover of a like pamphlet, even though it was only DEATH to THE GOVERNMENT. And like it was Fate there was another malenky booklet which had an open window on the cover, and it said:

“Open the window to fresh air, fresh ideas, a new way of living.” And so I knew that was like telling me to finish it all off by jumping out. One moment of pain, perhaps, and then sleep for ever and ever and ever.